An Ancient Pitch
by Deanish
Summary: Dean's out of hell, and the brothers are enjoying their version of normal. Until a couple of witches get in the way.
1. Of Cursed BandAids Fame

Notes: First, thanks to Mazza and Nej47 for the advance reads.

Second, I should admit up front that I'm a plagiarizer. Besides stealing characters from Eric Kripke, I'm shamelessly stealing … if not characters, then definitely concepts from Sarah Addison Allen, author of "Garden Spells" and "Sugar Queen." But in my defense, it's her fault for being so clever that I couldn't help but copy her. Seriously, even if you can't stand this, go buy her books. They're new favorites.

**Chapter 1**

Once upon a time, there was a quiet little town. And in that town there was bright and wholesome diner. And in that diner there was a pie …

OOO

For once, even Sam was only thinking about the pie. It was … there wasn't even a word for what it was. As brother of Dean, lover of all things pie, Sam'd had ample opportunity to sample pies across the country, and this one took the cake.

No pun intended.

It was flaky, but firm; rich, but sweet. And at just the right temperature for the mixture of its hot and the accompanying scoop of ice cream's cold to blend into perfect equilibrium on his tongue. Sam closed his eyes, threw back his head and just … savored.

"Mmmph," he sighed.

Dean answered with an affirmative, "MmMMmm."

Sam opened his eyes to snag Dean's gaze and grin. The pie tasted like … sunny kitchens and starched curtains fluttering in the breeze. Milk-mustached bedtime kisses and covers tucked securely under chins. Comfort food like he'd never known. So sweet, it almost made him sad. But not quite; instead, he smiled down at his plate and contemplated the etiquette of using his finger to mop up the remaining crumbs and melted ice cream.

"Whew," Dean said, dropping his plate back to the table after actually licking the ice cream dregs off. The fork clattered merrily on impact.

"Yeah," Sam agreed. And they sat in companionable silence for a moment.

It was June, and Dean had been out of Hell for more than a month. Lilith was dead and the brothers had been celebrating, really celebrating, for weeks. Sam couldn't remember ever feeling this … relaxed. Carefree. Content. Things were good, and the pie was a symptom of that, a symptom of how it was OK to enjoy the simple things again. Not like how Dean had enjoyed them after he made the deal, all desperate and frenetic. But really enjoy. Savor.

"So you liked that, huh?" Cammie, their apple-cheeked, jail-bait waitress was back and smirking knowingly at them. "What'd I tell you? Best. Pie. Ever."

Dean smiled back at her – a real smile with none of the ulterior motives that normally lurked behind his smiles – and shook his head. "I've tried a few 'World's Best Pies' in my time, but man. That one …" he trailed off. Finally he just let out a low whistle and sagged back in the booth with a sated expression.

Cammie's smirk blossomed into something toothy. "Y'all still gonna be 'round tomorrow?" she asked. "'Cause tomorrow's Pie du Jour is home-grown peach, and some people say it's even better than the buttermilk."

Just the word – _peach_ – sent Sam into daydreams of plucking sun-warm peaches from leafy green trees, the fuzzy skin tickling his lips and the explosion of hot juice dribbling down his chin. Bees buzzing in the distance and the scent of –

Cammie's snort brought him back to the diner. "I'll see you two tomorrow," she laughed, slapping their bill down on the table.

Sam had to blink a few times, feeling a little dazed. That had been … oddly vivid.

Dean was still slouched in the corner where the booth met the window, basking – eyes closed – in the evening sunlight streaming in. So Sam pulled the check over. No computerized receipts here – it was a quaint throwback to the last century, with a perforated number strip at the bottom and a big smiley face hand drawn under their total. Which, Sam winced, was more than they'd normally pay for the couple of sandwiches they'd ordered. But he couldn't say it wasn't worth it.

And really, he'd known it wasn't going to be cheap as soon as they'd walked through the door. It was just a small town diner, like any of the thousands he and Dean had eaten in over the years, but where the 1950s décor in the others was just plain old, Courthouse Square Café's was retro. The black-and-white-checked tile was gleaming, and the frilly white aprons the waitresses wore were crisp. He'd had to drag Dean away from the shiny red barstools that spun at the counter in front of the spotless kitchen.

It was nice, actually. Even Dean seemed to appreciate it.

Maybe they _could_ stay and try that peach pie tomorrow.

The cowbell above the door jangled jauntily as a couple of soccer moms filed in, mid conversation.

"… done something to Jonathan, I'm sure of it," the slightly blonder one was saying. Then her voice dropped low and serious. "You know what I mean?"

"Like a _spell_?" her companion hissed, sounding horrified – in a thrilled sort of way – at the prospect. Sam noticed Dean's eyes gleaming through slits in his eyelids, which meant he'd picked up on the conversation, too, despite his still-casual posture.

The first one shot her a look that clearly meant yes. "The Fischer family has _always_ been a little funny," she said. "And how else would you explain Jonathan's behavior? Last week he was mere _minutes_ away from giving Shelby Gates a ring. Now he's just _batty_ over that _woman_. And Fosters are positively _known_ for their level-headedness."

Sam and Dean exchanged small, exasperated smiles and relaxed again. Just some poor, love-sick schmuck. Not their kind of thing after al–

"You're new, so you wouldn't know, but when my grandmother was little, her grandmother once made it rain frogs."

Then again ...

OOO

The doors of the car squealed in unison, announcing the end of their lunch break. They folded themselves into the front seat and took a moment to consider the bustling brick street in front of them.

"So," Dean finally said.

"Yeah," Sam answered, trying to keep the reluctance out of his voice.

"Probably nothin'," Dean pointed out.

"Probably," Sam agreed.

"Then again, frogs. Could be something."

"Could be."

"No harm in checkin'."

"Nope."

"Not like we were headed anywhere particular."

"True."

"And," and Dean hesitated before getting to the crux of the matter. "I mean, I would kind of like to try that peach pie."

Sam let the smile spread slowly to the far corners of his face before turning toward Dean. "There is that," he admitted.

Dean flicked his wrist, and the car roared to life, accompanied by Don McLean crooning "Bye bye Miss American Pie." Sam just laughed and shook his head as Dean threw the stick into reverse. He didn't know how Dean did it, but he always managed to have the music cued up just right.

OOO

Sam eyed the Chapel Hill Public Library as Dean roared away the next morning. It was housed in a two-story, robin-egg blue Victorian, which Sam figured did not bode well for its reference section.

Sure enough, while the children's section had the very latest in _Goosebumps_ and 12 copies of the complete _Chronicles of Narnia_ boxed set, the research materials consisted primarily of a set of Encyclopedia Britannica dated 1987. But, said the sweet, white-haired librarian who smelled pleasantly of fresh-baked bread, she'd let him look at the bound copies of the award-winning _Chapel Hill Newsboy_ if he promised not to eat or drink within 10 feet of them. Would that help?

It would indeed, Sam assured her, turning out his pockets to prove he wasn't carrying chocolate contraband into the storage room.

His step stuttered, however, as he passed through the doorway. It was the smell. That dusty, fragile smell of old, old books. It brought all the desperation of the past year's search for a fix for Dean's deal rushing back for just a moment. Sam closed his eye and put a steadying hand on the door jam, reminding himself that it'd worked. He'd found his answer, and Dean was safe. The smell was one of success, not failure. He'd loved it for twenty-four twenty-fifths of his life, and he'd learn to love it again.

He was sure of it.

So he took a deep breath and pressed on into the room.

'It's just a room,' he reminded himself. 'Just a regular old storage room.' And it was. Shelves on every wall held the sorts of books that librarian sorts wouldn't feel comfortable letting the general public touch unsupervised. But they were all clearly labeled in English and none of them sported odd symbols on the front, so Sam had no reason to find them anything but innocuous.

"They start over here," the librarian was saying, indicating the top row of a wall of the oversized books that bound newsprint came in. "And go through here. Of course, we don't have this year's yet, because it's not done. But 2007 just came back from the binder."

She beamed proudly at him, clearly thrilled to be helping, and Sam couldn't help but return the gesture. "Thanks," he said. "This is perfect."

"Now you just have a seat right over here," she said, pushing him toward a table in the middle of the room, "and I'll bring you a few. Do you want to start with the first one?"

She was about 5'2 and no less than 90 years old. Sam worried her bones might snap in half if she tried to pull one of those monsters off the shelf. "Oh no, ma'am, please, let me get that."

"Oh no," she insisted. "You _relax_. This is my _job_."

He thought about forcing the issue, but she gave him the evil eye when he attempted to rise from his seat, so he decided he'd better stay put. He watched helplessly as she shuffled over to the shelves, gulped as she began her rickety climb of the short stepladder and cringed as the book almost toppled her when she slid it off the shelf. But a few minutes later she was laying it safely in front of him.

He didn't have the heart to tell her that he did not, in fact, want to start at the beginning.

So that was how he came to be reading the 1873 issues of the _Chapel Hill Newsboy_, when the object of his query was almost certainly born within the last century. Winchesters weren't known for their luck, but on occasion …

In the best of times, searching bound archival prints of old newspapers was difficult. In a small town like this, there was no concordance of any sort, and since time was usually the last thing you had plenty of during a hunt, Sam was used to having to skim and hope for the best. Which was why he was so surprised to find the name he was looking for in the lede article on the front page of the first edition of the _Chapel Hill Newsboy_.

The _Chapel Hill Newsboy_ spit out its first copy right in the thick of the Panic of 1873, its founder being one of the few to profit during the depression. It wasn't the town's first newspaper, but there was no journalistic record of the life of the town before that, because in 1873 the office of the _Newsboys'_ predecessor, the _Chapel Hill Citizen_, burned to the ground, leaving its publisher to beg for a beat job from the _Newsboy_ publisher. Who just happened to be his brother.

The brothers were Able and Evan Fischer.

Turns out Sam need not have worried about having to dig to find the Fischer name in print, because the Fischers apparently had no quarrel with partiality in journalism, no qualms about covering their own family members' triumphs and success with blaring headlines. Everything from "Fischer Bank Stands Proud Amidst Sea of Swindlers" to "Fischer Daughter Takes Chapel Hill Cherry Queen Crown, Third Consecutive Year."

Possibly it was the biased coverage, but it looked to Sam like the Fischers had owned Chapel Hill during the 19th century. Literally, if the store names in the advertisements were any indication: Fischer's Foods, Fischer's Fine Fashions, Fischer's Feed Supply. Sam had never realized the alliterative possibilities of the letter F.

He shook his head in amazement, grabbed a few more editions from the shelves and kept reading. Several hours later, he had ink-stained hands and a pretty good picture of the family's history.

The Fischers' influence held into the 20th century, but the first World War was hard on them. By the end of the second, their numbers had dwindled down to just three families, and only one of them had a surviving son.

The _Newsboy_ was bought out by one of the large newspaper chains then, and the records of the Fischer family got to be a little harder to find. Sam had to start trolling the birth, wedding and funeral announcements to keep the thread. Through those snippets, however, he was able to make out that Clark Fischer, the last male heir, married Candace Fischer, a second cousin, and begot Blake, who in turn married Leighanne Truly. Clark and Candace died of a broken heart and cancer – respectively but not chronologically – in the space of two months in 1995. And Blake and Leighanne were killed in a 2007 car wreck.

That just left their two daughters: Anna and Elinore.

Not having a relative in journalism cut down on the Fischers' media exposure by quite a bit. Anna and Elinore showed up occasionally for honor rolls (Elinore) and sports awards (Anna), but it seemed almost … grudging when they did. They were usually blinking or mid-sentence in the accompanying photos. And since high school graduations, the mentions had been downright perfunctory. A society page's blurb that claimed "the event was catered by Anna Fischer" here. A real estate ad that promised "the home was designed by Elinore Fischer Inc." there.

It could just have been a bad case of small-town journalism, but for some reason Sam didn't think so. He suspected he should have been reading more into what _wasn't_ written, but he just had no clue where to start. Small towns, he well knew, could be secretive like that, sometimes. Especially in the South. Things – good and bad – tended to get exaggerated in the South.

Not that that was always a bad thing. It made the article he was actually looking for that much easier to find: The May 12, 1945, edition headline read, "Biblical Plague Visits Chapel Hill's Fourth Grade."

According to the story, the children of the local primary school had been out on their annual end-of-year nature walk, uncovering the relationship between April showers and May flowers and other mysteries of the universe. Apparently the way it worked was, the older you got, the more advanced the nature you learned about. First and second graders started with plants, and in third grade you graduated to bugs. By fourth grade you were ready for vertebrates of the aquatic and amphibious variety, which were trumped only by fifth grade's yearly pilgrimage to a local farm.

Except in 1945, when nothing trumped the amphibians.

The fourth graders had, by all accounts, been looking for tadpoles in a water sample taken from a small pond, when the first of the frogs showed up. Despite the story that the woman in the café's grandmother had apparently passed down, they did not rain from the sky. Though, to be fair, it might have seemed that way to a fourth grader, when the frogs started leaping from nearby trees.

Chaos ensued and children were terrified. Except for one Candace Fischer, who was – judging from the photo accompanying the article – delighted. The photo showed Candace surrounded by frogs, including one perched on her shoulder. And the photographer had caught her lowering puckered lips to the head of the one held between her hands. The caption identified "The Frog Prince" as her "very most favorite fairy tale."

Nothing in the article actually identified Candace as the cause of the sudden Anuran influx, but then that would be considered sketchy journalism, even in a small town. And it wasn't able to identify any other cause, either.

Sam thoughtfully returned all the newspaper books to their rightful spots on the shelves and was taking a look at one of the library's few other reference books – the Chapel Hill Phone Directory – when Dean returned. They tended to have good timing like that.

"So we've definitely got a case," Dean announced.

His tone made Sam wary. It implied he'd found something big, and Sam just didn't know how he felt about that. They'd been taking it pretty easy since Lilith, and he wasn't sure he was ready to go back to their old pace. They rarely came across true witches, the kind that would provoke that tone in Dean's voice, and nothing Sam had found was serious enough to spoil his assumption – or perhaps hope – that this would be some wannabe going a little heavy handed on the love potion.

But it was too late now.

"Oh yeah?" Sam said.

"Oooh yeah," Dean replied. "That poor bastard Jonathan that those women were talking about?"

"Yeah?"

"Dead."

"What?" Sam exclaimed.

"As a doornail. Happened just last night, in fact. Hung himself from his own peach tree."

OOO

While Sam was getting his research groove on, Dean decided to play to his own strengths: women. The two Chatty Cathies in the café had said that ol' Jonathan had been about to ask Shelby Gates for her hand – before he fell head over heels for "that Fischer woman," and Dean was willing to bet that Miss Gates would have a little something to say about that.

He'd thought he'd hit pay dirt when she answered her door in the middle of the day, sobbing and swollen. He'd thought he wasn't even going to need a cover story.

"Oh, uh hi," he's said, feigning surprise at her distress. "Gosh. I'm so sorry to bother you I was just going to see if … but you know what? Never mind. Are you OK?"

"I-I-I-I-I'm sorry," the woman stuttered, and Dean wondered what happened to Hell hath no fury. "Mu-mu-mu-mu-my fiancé was murdered last night, an-an-an-an-and I'm a li-li-li-little upset."

Dean didn't have to fake his jaw dropping. "Murdered!" he said before he could stop himself. "What happened?"

The woman just let out a wounded wail, and suddenly another woman appeared behind her.

"Shelby?" the new woman asked. "Sweetie, go sit down. Let me take care of the callers."

Shelby stumbled away from the door, and the new woman stepped into her place. "Can I help you?" she asked, a bit warily, but the way she sized Dean up indicated she might be talked into talking with one of his nicer smiles.

"Uh, no, no," Dean said, stuttering a bit himself and looking worriedly up from beneath his lashes, playing up his embarrassment. "I'm so sorry. I was going to … but I didn't realize. Is she OK?"

"No, not really," the woman said, smiling sadly. "She had some bad news today."

"Yeah, she said," Dean said. "Her fiancé was murdered?"

The woman blanched. "Is that what she said? He wasn't exactly, um … It's complicated."

Dean didn't say anything, just kept his face open and sympathetically inquisitive. Most of the time, people found that more encouraging than actual requests for more information.

Sure enough, the woman was dying to talk about it. She shot a furtive look toward the room Shelby had disappeared into, then took another step out the door, pull it closed behind her.

"Jonathan, he, uh. Well, he wasn't actually her fiancé yet. And he wasn't … I mean, we don't know for sure that he was murdered."

"Oh right," Dean said, adopting a tentatively fascinated expression. "I'd heard something about Jonathan and … oh what's-her-name Fischer."

"Elinore," the woman prompted, voice hardening instantaneously. "Elinore Fischer. And murder or not, she's to blame."

"Really?" Dean said, legitimately taken aback by the vehemence in her voice. "What do you mean?"

The woman snapped her mouth shut, and Dean thought for a second that was all he was going to get from her. But apparently the strength of her antipathy for Elinore Fischer was enough to overcome her reluctance to air dirty laundry before strangers.

"Do you believe in magic?" she asked, with all the earnestness of a 7th grader at her first séance.

Dean played his hand carefully. "What?" he said with all the incredulity he could muster. "You don't really believe in that love spell crap, do you?"

"All I know is, Jonathan was seen buying a ring at Miller's Jewelry – an _engagement_ ring. And then, two days later, he's suddenly following Elinore Fischer around like a love-sick puppy. Given that Jonathan's a Foster and Fosters are _known_ for their level heads and smart choices in wives, and Elinore's a Fischer, _known_ for being a little funny, if you know what I mean … well, you do the math."

Dean tried, he really did. But these small towns with their twisted family trees – it was worse than calculus. "Actually, I'm new," he finally decided. It had worked for the friend of Gabby Gossip in the café. "I don't really know what that means."

The woman pursed her lips, disappointed in Dean's lack of aptitude for the subject. "Clearly a woman like Elinore is not of the caliber that could catch a man like Jonathan," she explained impatiently.

Dean nodded slowly, but clearly didn't do a good job of hiding his bemusement. The woman sighed and launched into lecture mode.

"The Fischers have lived in this town for _years_," she said, warming quickly to her topic. "Since it was founded, probably. There have _always_ been Fischers in that old house on Peachtree Street. And _all_ of them have been a little off. Their grandmother once made it rain _frogs_."

Geez with the italics already, Dean thought. He said, "Yeah, uh, I heard something about that. Frogs? Really?"

"_Really._ But that's not the half of it. If Elinore gives you a band-aid? You could bet a million dollars that you're going to be bleeding in the next five minutes. And in five minutes, you'd be a million dollars richer."

Dean cocked his head and squinted at the lady. He thought about that before finally just giving up and repeating, "A _band-aid_?" But she was past the point of needing an encouraging smile to egg her on, anyway.

"And her sister. Anna? She's almost as bad. She can make a soup that will make you cry. And I _don't_ mean from too much pepper."

OOO

Sam frowned, confused. "Cursed band-aids and weepy soup? Doesn't exactly scream murder."

"Hold on, I'm not done yet," Dean fussed.

OOO

After Dean was unable to hold in a snort at the pepper comment, he found his source a bit less willing to talk. So his next stop was the home of poor Jonathan Foster, unrequiting beloved of Shelby Gates and supposed lover of Elinore Fischer.

There things took a decided turn for the dark.

He felt it almost as soon as he arrived. Just a trace, a hint – like a perfumed letter from many years ago. Just enough for him to recognize. Just enough to stop him cold.

Evil.

Dean didn't really remember May. He knew, intellectually, that he'd been … in Hell. And he suspected that it had been … well, horrible only scratched the surface of what the full-body muscle spasms and lightning-quick mental redirects triggered by even a suggestion of the subject indicated it had been, but it was a start. He didn't know if he was actively repressing the memories and they might one day spring themselves on him when set off. Or if it was just so bad that the human mind, as housed in a physical body, just couldn't comprehend it and be expected to function.

But he knew that whatever had happened here, at Jonathan Foster's house, whispered of a kinship to whatever it was he'd experienced in that missing month. And he was suddenly hit by how very badly he never ever wanted to experience it again.

Still. This was his job. So he put one foot in front of the other and followed the walk to Jonathan Foster's front door.

There was no police line, and Dean allowed himself a moment's hope that, despite the chill he felt just looking at the house, Shelby was just looking for someone to blame. That Jonathan had been the victim of an unfortunate fall or an allergic reaction.

It lasted until he'd opened the front door and took in the view of the back yard through the wall of picture windows facing him. The morning dew had glued peach blossom petals to the yellow tape like confetti. It couldn't have been easy for a man of any height to hang himself from the sprawling tree; he – or whoever was controlling him – must have been pretty determined.

Now Dean just needed to know which it was.

He didn't bother to check the actual scene of the hanging. The useful evidence would be long gone. He'd have to get Sam to hack into the police database for the crime scene photos. Unless an extra set of footprints showed up or the placement of the noose indicated that Foster had been pulled up, rather than dropped down, to his death – in which case, it was probably a police matter, anyway – they'd work on the assumption that if it was a murder, it was done from a distance.

The small bag of delicate bones and dried flowers that he found secreted between the support slats of Foster's bed frame didn't leave him with much hope that it was a faulty assumption. Dean didn't know the herbs as well as Sam, but he thought he recognized rose petals, nasturtium and marigold, to start with. Love, jealousy, sexual desire. He'd bet that the bones were from a dove or love bird. All mixed together with what was almost certainly blood. Enough to drive any man to distraction.

And judging by the collage of photos Foster had erected on his bedroom wall, distracted was a pretty apt description. Dozens, possibly even hundreds of photos of a single blond woman. Shopping. Jogging. Checking her mail.

"Batty," the woman in the diner had said. "Love-sick puppy," according to Shelby's friend.

This went way beyond that.

OOO

"So," Sam started, still sounding confused, "we think this Elinore Fischer – of the cursed band-aids fame – what? Spelled some guy into stalking her? And then killing himself?"

"I don't know. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe she just meant for him to fall in love with her."

Sam chewed on that – and his bottom lip – for a few minutes before shaking his head reluctantly. "Maybe, but … you'd have to be pretty naïve to use a hex bag in a love spell and not expect it to turn out messy."

"Well, maybe the stalking thing was just a side effect. Maybe the point was for him to fall so hard that he'd go off the deep end when it turned out she was just a big ol' tease."

Sam stared off into the distance for a little longer before turning back to Dean. "Guess we need more information," he said.

OOOOOO


	2. Eat and Love It Until It's All Over

Sorry for the excessive delay. And thanks to Mazza and Nej47 for their heaping amounts of help.

**Chapter 2:**

"Doesn't look much like a witch's hovel," Dean said, doubtfully.

Sam scrunched down in his seat and craned his neck to try and get a better view out of Dean's window. They were idling across the street from the address of the only Fischer that Sam had found listed in Chapel Hill. He squinted at it before grunting noncommittally. Those women back in Sherwood had lived in nice enough houses.

"Maybe it's candy coated," Dean continued, brightening.

"Um," Sam ran that one over in his head, but still came up blank. "Huh?"

"Candy coated," Dean enthused, unhelpfully.

Then it clicked, and Sam straightened up – the better to glare at his brother. "As in the kind of house you would use to fatten up the children you plan to turn into stew?" he asked.

Dean was unperturbed. "Hey, those Grimm guys knew their stuff."

Almost against his will, Sam considered the idea. It's not like he could say it was outside the realm of …Then shook his head. "Haven't come across any reports of missing children in the area, so I think we can safely assume she's not that kind of witch."

Dean frowned at Sam but didn't let him ruin his fun. "Betcha she's thought about it, though," he mused.

Sam had to admit that the house was decidedly uncreepy. It was, in fact, a very cozy-looking cottage. Dove gray with bright white trim and lots of shady trees that clearly grew up around the house, hugging its corners protectively.

And actually, when you looked a little closer maybe it was all a little _too_ picturesque. How did they manage to grow all that thick, green grass and those cheerful flowers with all that shade?

"Let's just get inside," Sam finally answered.

Dean parked a discreet distance away, and together they made their way up the tea rose-lined walk. After a casual glance around, Sam slipped his lock pick kit out of his pocket. But as he reached for the knob, the door fell open. He looked back at Dean, who raised questioning eyebrows at him. "Door was already open," he explained.

Dean's eyebrows turned suspicious, and his hand moved to the gun at his back, though he didn't pull it out. Sam took another look around. No one was in sight, and nothing was moving, except the porch swing in the corner of the wrap-around porch, which was swaying invitingly.

Even though there wasn't a breeze.

Sam opened his mouth to point that out, but Dean was already pushing cautiously through the front door with the excuse, "Well, it _is_ a small town."

When Sam looked back, the swing was still again. He frowned at it and moved on.

Whatever the reason for the lax security, the house was definitely empty. The air was completely still, without even the hum of the air conditioner or refrigerator to mask the silence – as though the whole house was holding its breath.

And it definitely didn't look like the kind of house that was used to quiet. It was larger than it appeared on the outside, and while the exterior was sunny but sedate, the interior was a riot of color – reds, yellows and oranges mixed brightly with gleaming hardwood floors and lots and lots of flowers. The furniture was overstuffed, the rugs plush and the pillows abundant. It looked … comfortable.

And Sam was no expert, but he knew enough to tell that the home was positively littered with antiques, eclectic and expensive – 18th century end tables holding up lamps on either side of the couch; a wire dressmaker's form collecting bags and scarves in the entry way; remnants of stained-glass windows distilling sunlight behind airy curtains. It shouldn't have gone together, but it did, and it certainly didn't scream 'witches live here.' Or really even whisper it.

It did, however, scream 'girls live here.' Sam felt elephantine just trying to maneuver down the hall.

"Hey," he said, slapping Dean's hand away from a fragile-looking bud vase of red poppies. Then, by way of staving off the complaint he could see coming, "If you were a witch, where would you keep your potion ingredients?"

"Kitchen," Dean promptly answered.

It wasn't where Sam would keep his potion ingredients, but he supposed it was as good a place as any to start. He shrugged and led the way down a hall lined with family photos dating back to what must have been the early days of photography – some of which Sam recognized from his perusal of the Chapel Hill Newsboys' archives – and through a cozy formal dining room decorated in bright blue with white china that gleamed despite its obvious age.

Both were as neat and carefully thought out as the living room had been, which made the state of the kitchen that much more surprising.

It wasn't … dirty, exactly. There were no crumbs or streaks of grease or grime. And there were lingering smells of something sweet recently baked.

But it was a mess.

There were haphazard piles of dishes everywhere – on the table, on the island, on the counters. Even inside the microwave, which Sam guessed wasn't used much, judging by the way the door seemed to have been removed to accommodate the girth of the serving bowls stored inside. A heap of unsorted silver lay tangled in a drying cloth draped over a punch bowl; tea cups teetered on the edge of every windowsill.

And where there weren't dishes, there were ingredients. No discernible rhyme or reason to it. The standard canisters of salt (but in table and sea and a number of other varieties), sugar (white, brown, powered and raw) and flour (lots and lots of flours). As well as teas and coffees, cocoa, all the standard spices and a few not so standard – saffron, sage, celery seed, star anise, juniper, coriander, cardamom, sumac, lime leaves. Plus … Marshmallows?

A quick look inside the walk-in pantry and stainless-steel industrial-sized refrigerator revealed why none of this was put away – both were crammed full, as were all of the cabinets. There were little pockets of work space carved out here and there, and room left for two place settings at the table. But otherwise, Sam estimated that there were no more than a few square inches of free space left in the kitchen. He supposed that – witch or not – it made sense for a caterer's kitchen to be well stocked, but he couldn't imagine how anyone could find anything in all this.

"Wow," Dean said, prying the lid off the marshmallow canister and popping a few into his mouth. He seemed impressed by the abundance, though, as opposed to overwhelmed by the mess, like Sam.

"Yeah," Sam said, fighting the urge to slap Dean's hand again as he reached for more marshmallows.

"So," Dean garbled around the mouthful, "is it safe to assume that somewhere in all this, there's probably some marigold, rose petals and nasturtium, or do we actually have to look?"

Sam looked around, bracing for the response he expected to get when he answered that it would irresponsible to just assume, when he spotted a slouching bag of garden soil crammed into the corner by a back door. Next to it were a mound of spades and trowels, and a pair of those weird plastic shoes that seemed to be so popular lately. He walked over and peered out the door's window.

If the kitchen was a mess, the garden was chaos. A jungle of honeysuckle vines and rose bushes running riot under a blossoming peach tree. Lilies, lavender, irises and asters. Silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row.

Chaos, but in the sense that nature was untamable. It reminded Sam of that book one of his third grade teachers read to the class during a string of rainy days – _The Secret Garden_. They moved before the class made it through the book, but it looked like Sam's mental picture of the garden. Wild and untamed. But clearly someone had put a lot of work into cultivating it. Because he was pretty sure half of the things he was seeing shouldn't grow in this hemisphere, much less this climate. Certainly not in the baking heat of a southern almost-July.

Regardless, Sam had no trouble picking out of the snarl delicate pink roses, sunny marigolds and showy nasturtiums. It wasn't the kind of smoking gun that would hold up in court, but it was good enough for a Winchester.

"Looks like we found our witch," he told Dean.

A more extensive search of the house didn't turn up any spare bird bones lying around. But Dean did uncover what he considered an unusually large store of band-aids in one of the upstairs bathrooms. And Sam hit pay dirt in the library.

The smell hit him first, and like at the library, he had to brace himself before he went in. Unlike the library, however, these titles weren't written in English. The shelves spanned centuries and several continents, and Sam thought that if he'd had access to this library two months ago, Dean never would have spent May in Hell.

His breath caught at the thought, and he clenched his fists against a sudden surge of resentment and rage. These books had no business in the home of a caterer and an architect, and definitely not in the hands of a witch. He couldn't keep them himself, of course – they'd hardly fit in the trunk of the car – but maybe they could haul them to Bobby's. Bobby'd give 'em a good home, and then they'd be there if Sam ever needed them again.

Not that he ever – _ever_ – intended to need them again.

A car door slamming outside pulled him out of his head. He hurried from the room and met Dean scrambling down the stairs. They were heading for the back door when they heard a rattle from the kitchen doorknob, followed by a loud thump. Dean grabbed Sam by the collar and pulled him into the pantry just as the sounds of the key scrapping against the lock reached them. The pantry door swung shut mere seconds before the backdoor swung open.

"Not funny!" a woman's voice rang out, and Sam stiffened thinking they'd been caught. The woman just sighed, though, and plunked several somethings heavily to the ground. Sam peeked through the crack of the door, and saw a pile of environmentally-friendly grocery bags. He couldn't get a good look with his limited scope, but a dark-haired figure the size and shape of a woman flitted in and out of view around the edges of the pile, humming what sounded like Blondie. For a moment Sam worried that she'd need to put something away in the pantry, then decided that based on the utter lack of free space he'd noted earlier, they were probably safe.

"What could she possibly be out of?" he wondered aloud to Dean.

He couldn't see Dean, but felt him shrug in the darkness. "Eye of newt?" he suggested in a whisper.

A trio of tinny voices piped up from nowhere, singing, "Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters …" The dark-haired figure tripped back into view and began digging frantically through the bags. The song made it to "Lord help the mister who—" before the woman pulled a cell phone out with a triumphant "ah ha!"

"Don't tell me you can't find any!" she answered in lieu of hello.

After listening for a second, she groaned. "Elie, I told you, they won't feel a thing, I promise. They'll just eat and eat and love it until it's all over."

Sam's mouth fell open, and he felt Dean tense beside him.

"I meant to, I swear," said the woman, whom he presumed to be Anna. "But I was almost home by the time I realized I forgot it, and I've got a bazillionty things to do tonight, so can you just stop and pick some up for me on your way home? Pleeease? Just this once? I'll never ask you to help again, I promise."

Another pause. "Yeah, I know I said that last time, but this time I really –" She trailed off, apparently listening to Elinore.

"No!" she moaned. "It has to be tonight! It works best under a full moon!"

After that, there was a minute or two of intermittent "But … but … but"s followed by a "Wait, Elie, jus—" and a heavy sigh. A faint beep signaled the end of the conversation.

Sam could just make out the back of Anna's head as she slid down the counter with a pouty, "Fine." She sat still for a second then started gathering the contents she'd flung from her purse in her search for the cell phone, muttering "ungrateful little brat" all the while. Two minutes and an upended bag of apples later, and Sam and Dean were alone in the house once again.

Sam cautiously pushed the pantry door all the way open, and turned to look at Dean in the light of the kitchen. Dean looked about as stunned as he felt. It was never this easy.

"I guess we know what we're doing tonight, then."

OOO

Being that it was just a week past the solstice and still hours before the moonrise, Sam and Dean decided they had plenty of time to grab some dinner and talk strategy before they needed to be back at the house on Peachtree Street. Dean pointed them toward the Courthouse Square Café while Sam riffled through one of his mounting pile of journals.

"I'm sure I … yeah. Yeah. Here it is," he mumbled. "OK. Obviously I've never tried it, but I came across a ritual a couple of months ago while I was … uh, looking … that claims to be able to strip a witch of her power."

Dean noted the hesitation in Sam's reference to his year of research, but decided not to pursue it at the moment. He wasn't sure if that was for Sam's benefit or his own. He didn't know if Sam's avoidance of the subject was for his or Sam's benefit, come to it.

Regardless, what he said was, "That's a start."

"A start?"

Dean sighed, not liking the direction this conversation – this job – was going to have to take. "I don't know if stripping her of her power is going to be enough. If she's mostly using garden herbs and spices to do her dirty work … she may not need powers to keep it up."

He watched out of the corner of his eye as Sam thought through that logic. He could see when he came to the conclusion Dean had already reached.

"Oh," he said. He opened and closed his mouth around aborted arguments a few times but didn't actually say anything more.

Dean let the silence sit like that for a moment, then decided he couldn't leave it there. "Are you … OK with that?" He wasn't sure what answer he was hoping for these days.

Sam didn't answer for awhile, but Dean knew he wasn't ignoring the question. Finally he said, carefully, "I don't know."

Neither did Dean. He couldn't consign things to Hell so easily these days. He couldn't remember it, but what he was forgetting made him wonder what it took to deserve it. Not that he was feeling sorry for evil. But … what kind of monster has a vase of poppies on their coffee table?

He shook his head, trying to shake the image out of his mind as he pulled into the restaurant parking lot. The woman had killed one person already – was planning to kill more. And poppies or not, what he'd felt at Jonathan's sure wasn't sweet.

Still. Shooting a real person would be bad enough. Shooting them, knowing they were heading for Hell …

Christ, he was just going in circles now. Dean turned off the engine with an impatient flick of his wrist and barreled out of the car. He didn't bother to wait for Sam, but heard him scrambling to catch up as he pushed through the diner's door. The cowbell that had seemed friendly yesterday just jangled against his nerves today.

"Thought I'd see you again!" Cammie stepped out from behind the counter, reaching for a couple of menus. "You just here for the pie, or did ya want some dinner first?"

Dean just stared at her, no idea – for a moment – what she was talking about. Luckily Sam got there in time to intervene.

"Uh, dinner first, please," he said. Cammie shot Dean a funny look but didn't ask as she led them to the same booth they'd sat in the day before.

They ate a quiet dinner of meatloaf as the light outside began to turn pink. The same string of thoughts were wearing a groove in Dean's grey matter as they circled in on themselves like an ouroboros: No one deserves that, no one deserves Hell. Where else are you going to send evil? OK, evil deserves to go to Hell. What counts as evil? Murder is evil. Anna Fischer murdered, she as much as admitted it. But … surely she didn't seem bad enough to deserve to go to Hell. No one deserves Hell.

A glance up at Sam indicated that his thoughts were probably traveling in the same vein, though Dean didn't know if he was giving the same attention to the subject of Hell that Dean was. He wondered if Sam had thought much about it at all before last year. Dean certainly hadn't. It had been the place where demons went if you were lucky, and nothing more. Even when Dad was down there, Dean had been so worried about what was going on with Sam that he hadn't had time to think about it much past being angry about the whole thing.

Now though—

Dean was mercifully jarred out starting that whole train of thought over again when Cammie slammed two plates of pie down on the table.

"Figured I knew pretty well what you'd be wanting," she said, grinning.

Dean wasn't so sure she did, but he managed to paste on a smile and thank her anyway. She waited expectantly for them to pick up their forks.

"You're gonna love this," she promised.

Sharing a tight smile across the table with Sam, they both picked up their forks and dug in.

And …

Dean's anxiety seemed to melt away in the face of _peaches_. God, they were … he could practically … He leaned back in the booth to savor the taste. It was like being transported to a back porch somewhere. Freshly mowed grass sweetening the air and lazy bees buzzing just out of sight. It'd be OK. They'd know the right thing to do when the time came. They always did.

His gaze wandered toward the window, which he hadn't thought to look out before. Directly across the street was the sprawling seat of government from which the café got its name. And catty cornered from that was a little white church with bright stain-glass windows and a gleaming steeple perched over a tiny bell tower. Probably where the town got its name. It looked nice.

Suddenly Dean heard himself saying, "Maybe we should go to church on Sunday."

Jesus H. _Christ_, where had that come from?

Dean shot up in his seat – he hadn't meant to say that out loud. Was he even thinking that? He tried to remember. Maybe a little, but, you know …. not really. He didn't do church. Shit.

Sam gaped at him. "You? Go to church? Are you on crack?"

Well it wasn't _that_ big a deal, Dean couldn't help but think defensively. "You're the one who prays every night," he accused.

"Not anymore," Sam threw back.

Dean lost track of whatever he'd been planning to say next. "You don't? Since when?"

Sam tilted his head to the angle that Dean always interpreted as incredulousness. "Since about the time I figured out there wasn't going to be any divine intervention keeping you out of Hell."

They hadn't actually said the word 'Hell' out loud much during the past month, and it seemed to have so much more weight now than it had before. But that wasn't what forced Dean to look away, to find a small gouge in the edge of the table to focus on while the white noise ringing in his ears drowned out the sounds of the diner.

So. He was single handedly responsible for Sam's loss of faith in all things good.

Well crap.

"You know," he said slowly, "I'm not in Hell."

When he looked back up, Sam looked more incredulous, if anything. "So what, you're a Bible thumper now?"

"No!" Dean spat. Then, "But, I mean … " He fish-mouthed for a minute trying to go on.

"What?" Sam earlier indignation seemed to be edging toward honest curiosity now.

Dean let out a long breath and directed his gaze back toward the hole in the side of the table. "Well, it's right, isn't it? About Hell."

When he chanced a quick glance up, Sam was giving him that look he sometimes got, that wistful look like Dean was the saddest book he'd ever read.

Dean grumbled, exasperated, and looked away again. "Shuddup," he growled.

Sam just grinned, and they lapsed back into a more comfortable silence. After a few beats of it, Sam cleared his throat and, glancing out the window at the church Dean had spotted, said in a sidling voice, "You know, that's a Baptist church."

Dean followed his gaze and shrugged in agreement. "So?"

"So the Baptist are usually pretty solidly against drinking and gambling and sleeping around."

Dean thought about that, then pulled out his best leer. "Soo … _you're_ a Baptist."

That earned him an eye roll and his own, "Shuddup."

But then—

The leer slid of Dean's face. "Hey," he said. "So that drinking and stuff …" He coughed, stalling. "They, uh, they think those things send you to Hell?"

Sam's eyes went distant and thoughtful. "Depends, I guess. On how fundamental a Baptist you're talking to. Some might say that if you're doing those things, you must not be a Christian and are therefore going to Hell. Others – just that those are things Christians should avoid."

"Well who's right?" Dean said, wincing a bit at the unintended sharpness in his voice. But honestly, shouldn't that be a pretty cut and dried answer? They've had what? 2,000 years to figure this out?

Sam didn't seem to notice right away. "Who knows?" he shrugged.

He couldn't miss it, however, when Dean demanded, "What do you mean, 'who knows?'" in the voice he usually reserved for intimidating someone into telling where they'd buried the body. Dean watched Sam blink in surprised confusion and visibly pull himself out of his daydreams.

"Well," he said finally, apologetically "that's the kind of thing that people have been fighting over for centuries. Like, literally."

"So what? People are supposed to just guess and hope for the best? Bullshit. You can't leave people hanging like that – they need to know how not to end up in Hell!"

Sam froze, realization dawning on his face. "Dean—"

The stricken tone told Dean that the gig was well and truly up. Sam was onto him. Not that there was anything to be onto. He didn't even remember anything, so it wasn't like it mattered. Not that that would necessarily stop Sam – his policy was that if the subject was brought up, it must be pursued. And possibly beaten to death.

It made Dean tired just thinking about it, so he hurried to head his brother off.

"We'd better get going," Dean said before Sam had a chance to figure out what _he_ wanted to say. "Moon'll be up soon."


End file.
